Value Management: Things That Matter

Things That Matter

Establishing, focusing-on and delivering-on the Things That Matter is at the core of Value Management.

That might sound simple, but the following will make clear how that’s not the case at all:

  • What we mean by “Things That Matter”.
  • Why they are so pivotal.
  • Why people aren’t focused on them as they need to be.

What are “Things That Matter”?

At the most basic level, the Things That Matter are anything and everything that constitute value: value firstly to your customers, and then – from there – value to your organisation, your employees, your stakeholders and your partners.

The Things That Matter include goals, targets, values, risks, issues or concerns:

  • Some will be towards-the-positive (e.g. “achieving competitive advantage“), whilst some will be away-from-the-negative (e.g. “we need to resolve this dispute to make progress“).
  • Some will be also be neutral or driven by external factors (e.g. “this market requires us to be ISO-accredited“).
  • Some will be long-term and fundamental; some will be time-dependent and situation-specific.

What the specific Things That Matter are will vary greatly with circumstance and lifecycle stage – e.g. in a negotiation or planning stage, values and goals are more likely in focus; later, it is likely issues that will come to dominate.

However, at every stage, whilst some Things That Matter will be objective and concrete, many – usually most – will be subjective and intangible.

Why are Things That Matter so pivotal?

The clue is in the name – these things matter.

The Things That Matter are what define organisations, their projects and their relationships; they are what your customers, stakeholders, employees and partners will ultimately judge you on.

It is therefore imperative that the Things That Matter are established, focused-on and delivered-on, but that’s where it gets difficult. Why?

The challenge

Most would assume that the Things That Matter are what their organisation, its employees, its stakeholders and its partners are all focused on – everyone just “knows” and agrees what things matter and what to do about them.

However, because the most critical Things That Matter are typically subjective, they don’t feature in contracts (at least not effectively) and even less so in how projects and relationships are managed and measured.

Such Things That Matter will be broad, vague or both – emotionally important, but hard to know what to do with, as it often won’t be clear what action could be taken to address them, at least directly.

Further compounding the challenge is that we also naturally gravitate to the objective, the quantifiable and the easily-measurable – these things give us a (largely false) sense of control and order, attracting disproportionate focus and attention.

Meanwhile, if any attempt is made to articulate the subjective Things That Matter, it’s usually top down and vague, e.g. in corporate values, mission statements, behavioural charters, etc.

Even if such vehicles contain the “right” Things That Matter (unlikely), they are largely disregarded in practice because they:

  • Are “imposed” and bolted-on; not collectively-owned and baked-in.
  • Typically just assert a priority or describe something that will happen, but without saying why or how: a source of frustration rather than inspiration.
  • Get lost in the ‘noise’ of other communication.
  • Remain static or lag behind change.

If you then ask at the front line what the Things That Matter are to their organisations – and, in relationships, the ones shared by both organisations – you’ll usually either get no answers, varied answers or contradictory answers.

Meanwhile, from a management perspective, there is a sense that the Things That Matter at the front line are obscured or even invisible – ‘locked’ in the minds of front-line staff closer to the end customer.

And so the most crucial Things That Matter are not properly surfaced, not effectively expressed, not collectively owned, not aligned (or the differences managed), not effectively measured, and often all of these: ultimately, they are not working.

To date, there hasn’t been an approach that can successfully address all this, but now there is: Value Management.

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